Pac-Man Championship Edition DX finally scores a discount

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX is that rarest of things: an exclusive Xbox Windows Phone game... Well, exclusive among the smartphone market, as it’s a port of the popular XBLA game. And man, what a good one! I even included it in my Five Must-Have Xbox Games list back in May.

But one thing has long kept the wider WP market from embracing the finest Pac-Man mobile game of all time: its steep price. Despite the fact that Pac-man CE DX contains just under a third of the XBLA game’s content, it has always cost only one third less - $6.99, as compared to the beefier $10 console version. In a market in which seemingly everyone (somewhat unwisely) values everything at one dollar no matter what, the $7 price tag just doesn’t fly.

Today that changes because Pac-man CE DX has finally had its first price drop/sale since launching in May 2011. What’s more, it’s now only 99 cents!

Pac-Man Fever

Seriously, Pac-Man CE DX is a terrific game. It builds on the foundation of the original Pac-Man, adding three new mazes with selectable visual styles and background music for variety. The gameplay has evolved a bit too, with Pac-Man now able to chomp dozens of ghosts in a single chain or use bombs when things get hectic. The shift in focus from memorizing patterns (as the original game requires) to quickly detecting the best path to grab the dots makes this one much more fun than the first Pac-Man. Numerous gameplay modes add loads of replay value as well. Pac-Man CE DX belongs in the library of all avid Pac-Man fans. Check out our full review for more details.

Sale or price drop?

The big question is whether Pac-Man CE DX will stay at 99 cents. If not, then how long will it be on sale? We’ve reached out to Microsoft and Namco Bandai to find out. Just in case this is a one-day only sale (as the Xbox 360 is currently having each day through the end of the year), it’s better to buy the game right away instead of waiting. We’ll update as soon as we clarify the duration of the sale or price drop.

Countdown to 2013 Update

In case you missed our first announcement, six Xbox Windows Phone games are currently marked down to 99 cents as part of the Countdown to 2013 sale. As usual with these sales on Windows Phone, things got off to a rocky start. The prices didn't update until late in the first day of the sale. Worse, there was some confusion about whether all six games were supposed to cost 99 cents (they are) thanks to several errors on the sale’s webpage.

In fact, Microsoft’s kitty simulator Kinectimals dropped off of said page and lingered at its regular price, prompting Doubting Thomases to speculate that it wasn’t part of the sale. Luckily, that proved not to be the case. Kinectimals is now 99 cents like the other Countdown to 2013 games (through December 31st), so pocket like it’s hot!

Great game, but come on... How can I give more than three stars to a game that doesn't implement fast app switching, which was implemented with Mango more than 14 months ago? SERIOUSLY? It was allowed to become an Xbox live game without that COUPLE LINES of code???

Wow, now I won't be able to sleep tonight. I've been waiting for this to go on sale since I got my Samsung Focus almost 2 years ago! Yeah I know, I'm cheap. Was thinking it was going to be $2.99 but .99 is a real steal! Gotta hand it to Microsoft for coming out with half a dozen of their best games for the $.99 Holliday sale. WP owners can finally get excited about great sales like iOS and Android have had for a while now.